


The Lamentations of Ganymede

by LadyKeane



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Epistolary, Jeeves poetically compares Bertie to gods and beauties and stuff, Literary References, M/M, Mythological References, Pining, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10098017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKeane/pseuds/LadyKeane
Summary: Unable to bear the strain of his feelings anymore, Jeeves writes Bertie a letter he intends to remain forever unsent.





	

Darling Boy,  
The hour is late. Earlier this evening, after you had sailed home from the Drones Club on clouds on light inebriation and even lighter whimsy, the walls of this flat shook gently under the pulse of a merry piano and your own silvery voice. Beholding you rimed in Winter moonlight, your lissom fingers dashing about the ringing, recoicing keys, I felt you were not so much a Christian gentleman as a supernatural force, some Ariel sent to be my constant provoker.  
I digress. I know you are all too human, which is more than can be said for the armies of ghastly women who look upon you as some clay golem that can be fashioned to suit their own baleful designs. It is my chief purpose to keep this seige forever at bay. I would not exchange your blithering colloquialisms, foolhardy impulses or endearing expressions of feeling for any treasure in creation. Even the promise of my desperate love being returned.

The more transcendental part of me is wholly untroubled by the fuschia cravats and orange checked jodhpurs you amass, but you have charged me with the delight of managing your wardrobe. This privelege is one I take to without restraint of passion. To choose the hallowed vestments that adorn your tender young frame, to knot your neckties and affix your cufflinks… you must allow me my pleasure. It is with mortal pride that I marvel at you in the cut of crisply tailored flannel, in periwinkle grey softer than mist, through which the roseleaf of your beautiful lips and cheeks strike me. I do wonder if Doctor Faustus, having ornamented his pure maid Margeurite in Mephistophilean jewels, was rendered as breathless?

You impart to me other ecstasies, sweet creature, in overseeing your toilette. Luminous trickles of water tracing the planes of your thighs and back. Dripping away off the tip of your pert nose and full lashes. The jubilant echo of your childish song bouncing off the bathroom tiles. I retain a stranglehold on my aphrodisia, then it infests me in the 3 a. m. void. After these aching nights I drift into your room in the dawn half-light, foolishly clinging to the artifice of early-morning tasks— do you notice, upon waking, the fresh sprays of white peonies that always greet you at the bedside?—, simply to worship your lazy repose. Endymion was yearned for by Selene. You, love, are stroked by the timorous early rays of Apollo in your sleep. One single morning saw my madness overtake me, and I drew a cluster of my fingers through your mess of burnished caramel curls. You remained asleep, and I extracted myself from your vicinity in shame.

I find myself thankful that fate has arranged our household so as to make you the highborn gentleman of rank and I the humble servant. There are strains of aristocratic blood in the Jeeves family tree. Had the stars been in a slightly different position at my birth, I may well have found myself with a title and estate. Had I been taught to acquire and command, rather than toil and endure, what might I now be doing to you? The history of the Empire is scattered with rapacious dukes and baronets. I may have abducted you, my pretty gentryman, or else bought your company with riches and prize thoroughbreds. Quenching my thirst, I would have never had cultivated the conscience with which to nurture and tend to you, or strive for your own comfort.  
Indeed, while my own merits have been attained through mindful application, your many virtues are so easy and natural. What schoolmaster could ever have mounted that unfailing kindness in you? How could your gentle optimism and gratitude for being alive ever be purchased? Many is the 'morning' when you require one of my restoratives— your radiant smile, which follows the ritual imbibing, is my own elixir of life.

Should there ever emerge from the Mayfair smog a maiden worthy of your admiration, I would acquiesce, as I have been hardened to do. This eventuality would require a veritable Madonna to capture your tender affections, as I will accept no less than a lady of reliably sound heart, mind, body and soul. Else I can never, never let you go.  
I know what lies in my future, should the day come. Through foul means or fair I shall endeavour to change my vocation from valet to butler, so as to watch your children grow up and oversee your cooks and laundry-maids, never allowing a single filament out of place in the paradise surrounding you. If this concession is impossible, I shall repair to the continent, live in an undisclosed corner of the countryside and slowly perish from my wounds. Should you ever find these words, and I flatter myself that you will not, a similar stratagem is to be implemented.

Dearest, cherished, silly laughing boy! I am not a man given to useless prayer. See how you bend me so as to make me beg of you, of the heavens: let no power tear me from you. Let us remain in this comfortable symbiotic cocoon. It will be a happy day when I can observe that same bright twinkle flashing in eyes ringed by crows' feet, and when I can pass my vulgar fingers through curls that have blanched from golden to silver-white. My place in this world is standing at the side of my sweet prince's throne, bearing him restorative, Earl Grey, gin & tonic or whatever potion best accents his kaleidoscopic impulses.

With every whit of my being, with every atom of strength in my heart and my soul… I love you, Bertram Wilberforce Wooster.

Now and evermore your servant,  
Jeeves.


End file.
